Future for food and farming R&D depends on local hubs of excellence
Investing locally to deliver global solutions to the big issues in the food and farming sector will be the key to fuelling enterprise and innovation going forward.
That was the message from Dr Rhian Hayward MBE, CEO of the Welsh innovation campus, AberInnovation, at an event to mark the end of EU funding and the start of a new era of public and private support.
Dr Hayward was joined on a discussion panel by Professor Iain Donnison, head of the Institute of Biological, Environmental & Rural Sciences (IBERS) and Dean Cook – executive lead for Place and Levelling Up at Innovate UK, the national innovation agency and a council of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Mr Cook explained that delivering deeper collaboration and joining up the landscape is vital.
He said: “Supporting this panel discussion in mid-Wales, one week after Innovate UK signed a memorandum of understanding to support innovation in closer partnership with Welsh Government, was a welcome opportunity to better understand sector priorities and opportunities.
“Working with the research base, we need to encourage more local businesses to be innovation active and to signpost them to funding opportunities.
“By growing the number and ambition of R&D intensive businesses that cluster in places such as mid-Wales, and better connecting that local ecosystem, we can drive better local outcomes of improved productivity and the creation of higher value jobs,” Mr Cook confirmed.
With ‘health and agriculture’ and ‘net zero’ identified at the event as key areas of government focus, alongside appetite for the UK to claim the title of being a science super-power by 2030, the opportunities for unlocking research to deliver new products and services to the sector are deemed vast.
“We’re focusing on projects that these industries want,” said Dr Hayward.
Professor Iain Donnison who shared a number of industry examples in the briefing said: “Products containing functional ingredients that promote their nutritional value or that remove the salt without taking away the flavour are a strong example of research focus at the moment.”
Dr Hayward continued: “There is also important work being undertaken in eliminating waste at every stage of the supply chain, or finding new uses for what was previously waste.
“These are all areas of focus as climate change and sustainability and addressing cost-of-living pressures come back to pairing food supply chain businesses and entrepreneurs with the chance to test their ideas and their scalability.”
“It takes the kind of world-class facilities that we can offer here at AberInnovation to bring the experts and infrastructure together and we’ve got the opportunity to lead the way.
“We’re calling on food and drink and agri-tech organisations working in industry to engage with us,” she continued.
AberInnovation is an example of a facility that’s fast become a local hub for specialist academic knowledge and expertise, which is more relevant than ever in the post-Brexit world.
